four, might deprive Congress of powers which have been expressly delegated. The answer to this is, that it would be a very extreme case for a single State to claim the resumption of a power, which it had clearly delegated in positive terms. But it seems almost beyond the range of possibility, that six other States should be found to sustain a nullifying State in such a pretension. Should such a case ever occur, as one-fourth and upwards of the States resolving to break their pledges, without the slightest pretence, it would show, that it was time to break the league. If a spirit of friendship and fair dealing, cannot bind together the members of this Union, the sooner it is dissolved the better. So that this objection is rather nominal, than substantial. But the evil of this objection is, that whilst its admission would relieve us from an imaginary peril, we should be plunged into that certain danger of an unrestricted liberty of Congress to give us instead of a confederated government, a government without any other limitation upon its power than the will of a majority.

Other objections have been urged against nullification. It is said, that the President or Congress might employ the military and na val force of the United States to reduce the nullifying State into obedience and thus produce a civil dissention amongst the members of the confederacy. We do not deem it necessary in a community, so conversant with this part of the subject as that of South Carolina, to recapitulate the arguments which have been urged against such an improbable course, both for the want of power, and on the ground of expediency. But we cannot pass over one view, which we think sufficient to quiet all apprehension on that score. We live in an age of reason and intellect. The idea of using force on an occasion of this kind, is utterly at variance with the genius and spirit of the American people. In truth, it is becoming repugnant even to the genius and spirit of the governments of the old world. We have lately seen in England one of the greatest reforms achieved, which her history records; a reform which her wisest statesmen twenty years ago, would have predicted could not be accomplished without civil war, brought about about by a bloodless revolution. The cause is manifest. Not only are the people every where better informed, but such is the influence which public opinion exerts over constituted authorities, that the rulers of this earth are more swayed by reason and justice than formerly. Under such evident indications of the march of mind and intellect, it would be to pay but a poor compliment to the people of these States, to imagine, that a measure taken by a Sovereign State, with the most perfect good feeling to her confede rates, and to the perpetuity of the Union, and with no other view than to force upon its members, the consideration of a most important constitutional question, should terminate otherwise than peaceably.

Fellow-Citizens, it is our honest and firm belief, that nullification will preserve, and not destroy this Union. But we should regret to conceal from you that if Congress should not be animated with a patriotic and liberal feeling in this conjuncture, they can give to

this controversy what issue they please. Admit then that there is risk of a serious conflict with the Federal government. We know no better way to avoid the chance of hostile measures in our op ponents, than to evince a readiness to meet danger, come_from what quarter it will. We should think that the American Revolution was indeed to little purpose, if a consideration of this kind were to deter our people from asserting their sovereign rights. That revolution it is well known, was not entered into by our Southern ancestors from any actual oppression, which the people suffered. It was a contest waged for PRINCIPLE, emphatically for principle. The calamities of revolution, strife and civil war, were fairly presented to the illustrious patriots of those times, which tried the souls of men. The alternative was either to remain dependent colonies in hopeless servitude, or to become free, sovereign and independent States. To attain such a distinguished rank among the nations of the earth, there was but one path, and that the path of glory-the crowning glory of being accounted worthy of all suffering, and of embracing all the calamities of a protracted war abroad, and of domestic evils at home, rather than to surrender their liberties. The result of their labors is known to the world, through the flood of light which that revolution has shed upon the science of government, and the rights of man-in the "LESSON it has taught the oppressor, and in the EXAMPLE it has afforded to the oppressed"-in the invigoration of the spirit of freedom every where, and in the amelioration it is producing in the social order of mankind.

Inestimable are the blessings of that well regulated freedom, which permits man to direct his labors and his enterprize to the pursuit or branch of industry to which he conceives nature has qualified him, unmolested by avarice enthroned in power. Such was the freedom for which South Carolina struggled when a dependant colony. Such is the freedom of which she once tasted as the first fruit of that revolutionary triumph which she assisted to achieve. Such is the freedom she reserved to herself on entering into the league. Such is the freedom of which she has been deprived, and to which she must be restored, if her commerce be worth preserving, or the spirit of her Laurens and her Gadsden has not fled forever from our bosoms. It is in vain to tell South Carolina that she can look to any administration of the federal government for the protection of her sovereign rights, or the redress of her sovereign wrongs. Where the fountain is so polluted, it is not to be expected that the stream will again be pure. The protection to which in all representative governments the people have been accustomed to look, to wit, the responsibility of the governors to the governed, has proved nerveless and illusory-under such a system, nothing but a radical reform in our political institutions can preserve this union. It is full time that we should know what rights we have under the federal constitution, and more especially ought we to know whether we are to live under a consolidated government, or a confederacy of States-whether the States be sovereign or their local Legislatures be mere corporations. A FRESH UNDER

STANDING OF THE BARGAIN we deem absolutely NECESSARY. No mode can be devised by which a dispute can be referred to the source of all power, but by some one State taking the lead in the great enterprize of reform. Till some one Southern State-tenders to the federal government an issue, it will continue to have its "appetite increased by what it feeds on." History admonishes us that rulers never have the forecast to substitute in good time reform for revolution. They forget that it is always more desirable that the just claims of the governed should break in on them "through well contrived and well disposed windows, not through flaws and breaches, through the yawning chasms of their own ruin." One State must, under the awful prospects before us, throw herself into the breach in this great struggle for constitutional freedom.There is no other mode of awakening the attention of the coStates to grievances which if suffered to accumulate must dismember the union. It has fallen to our lot fellow-citizens first to quit our trenches. Let us go on to the assault with cheerful hearts and

undaunted minds.

Fellow-citizens, the die is now cast. We have solemnly resolved on the course which it becomes our beloved State to pursuewe have resolved that until these abuses shall be reformed, NO MORE TAXES SHALL BE PAID HERE. "Millions for defence, but not a cent for tribute." And now we call upon our citizens, native and adopted, to prepare for the crisis, and to meet it as becomes men and freemen. We call upon all classes and all parties to forget their former differences, and to unite in a solemn determination never to abandon this contest until such a change be effected in the councils of the nation, that all the citizens of this confederacy shall participate equally in the benefits and the burthens of the government. To this solemn duty we now invoke you in the name of all that is sacred and valuable to man. We invoke you in the name of that LIBERTY which has been acquired by you from an illustrious ancestry and which it is your duty to transmit unimpaired to the most distant generations. We invoke you in the name of that CONSTITUTION which you profess to venerate, and of that UNION which you are all desirous to perpetuate. By the reverence you bear to these your institutions-by all the love you bear to liberty-by the detestation you have for servitude-by all the abiding memorials of your past glories-by the proud association of your exalted and your common triumphs in the first and greatest of revolutions-by the force of all those sublime truths which that event has inculcated amongst the nations-by the noble flame of republican enthusiasm which warms your bosoms, we conjure you in this mighty struggle to give your hearts and souls and minds to your injured and oppressed state, and to support her cause publicly and privately, with your opinions, your prayers and your actions. If appeals such as these prove unavailing, we then COMMAND YOUR OBEDIENCE to the laws and the authorities of the State by a title which none can gainsay. We demand it by that allegiance, which is reciprocal, with the protection you have received from the State. We admit of no obedience to any

Authority, which shall conflict with that primary allegiance, which every citizen owes to the State of his birth or his adoption. There is not, nor has there ever been "any direct or immediate allegiance between the citizens of South Carolina and the Federal Government. The relation between them is through the State." South Carolina having entered into the Constitutional compact, as a separate, independent, political community, as has already been stated, has the right to declare an unconstitutional act of Congress, null and void-after her sovereign declaration that the act shall not be enforced within her limits, "such a declaration is obligatory on her citizens. As far as its citizens are concerned, the clear right of the State is to declare the extent of the obligation." This declaration once made, the citizen has no course, but TO OBEY. If he refuses obedience, so as to bring himself under the displeasure of his only and lawful sovereign, and within the severe pains and penalties, which by her high sovereign power, the Legislature, will not fail to provide in her self-defence, the fault, and the folly must be his own.

And now, fellow-citizens, having discharged the solemn duty, to which we have been summoned, in a crisis, big with the most important results to the liberties, peace, safety, and happiness of this once harmonious but now distracted confederacy, we commend our cause to that great disposer of events, who (if he has not already for some inscrutable purposes of his own, decreed otherwise) will smile on the efforts of truth and justice. We know that "unless the Lord keepeth the city, the watchman waketh but in vain;" but relying, as we do, in this controversy, on the purity of our motives and the honor of our ends, we make this appeal with all the confidence, which in times of trial and difficulty, ought to inspire the breast of the patriot and the christian. Fellow-citizens, DO YOUR DUTY TO YOUR COUNTRY AND LEAVE THE CONSE QUENCES TO GOD.

ADDRESS

To the People of Massachusetts, Virginia, NewYork, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Maryland, Connecticut, Vermont, New-Hampshire, Maine, New-Jersey, Georgia, Delaware, Rhode Island, Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio, Louisiana, Indiana, Mississippi, Illinois, Alabama and Missouri.

We, the people of South Carolina, assembled in Convention, have solemnly and deliberately declared, in our paramount sovereign capacity, that the act of Congress approved the 19th day of May, 1828, and the act approve the 14th July, 1832, altering and amending the several acts imposing duties on imports, are unconstitutional, and therefore, absolutely void, and of no binding force within the limits of this State; and for the purpose of carrying this declaration into full and complete effect, we have invested the Legislature with ample powers, and made it the duty of all the functionaries and all the citizens of the State, on their allegiance, to co-operate in enforcing the aforesaid declaration.

In resorting to this important measure, to which we have been impelled by the most sacred of all the duties which a free people owe either to the memory of their ancesters or to the claims of their posterity, we feel that it is due to the intimate political relation which exists between South Carolina and the other States of this confederacy, that we should present a clear and distinct exposition of the principles on which we have acted, and of the causes by which we have been reluctantly constrained to assume this attitude of sovereign resistance in relation to the usurpations of the Federal Government.

For this purpose it will be necessary to state briefly, what we conceive to be the relation created by the federal Constitution, between the States and the general government; and also what we conceive to be the true character and practical operation of the system of protecting duties, as it effects our rights, our interests and our liberties.

We hold, then, that on their separation from the Crown of Great Britain, the several Colonies became free and independent States, each enjoying the separate and independent right of self govern ment; and that no authority can be exercised over them or within their limits, but by their consent, respectively given as States. It is equally true, that the Constitution of the United States is a compact formed between the several States, acting as sovereign communities; that the government created by it is a joint agency of the States, appointed to execute the powers enumerated and granted by that instrument; that all its acts not intentionally authorized, [S. No. 2.]

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